Benefits include lower amyloid burden, while remaining sedentary tied to lower cortical thickness
By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, May 6, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Boosting physical activity in midlife may improve brain health, according to a study published online April 30 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Muge Akinci, Ph.D., from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain, and colleagues investigated midlife physical activity changes in relation to Alzheimer disease-related pathologies. The analysis included 337 cognitively unimpaired adults with baseline and follow-up physical activity evaluations within 4.07 years.
The researchers found that remaining sedentary was associated with lower cortical thickness versus doing limited physical activity, maintaining adherence, or becoming adherent to World Health Organization recommendations. Becoming adherent to recommendations was associated with lower amyloid burden versus becoming nonadherent. There was a dose-dependent association between increased activity amounts and lower amyloid burden.
“These results support the beneficial effect of physical activity and new adherence to the World Health Organization recommendations from the standpoint of Alzheimer disease prevention, and call for interventions to promote physical activity increases in middle-aged adults in preclinical Alzheimer disease,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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